


Doubt

by brightly_lit



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Doubt, Eavesdropping, Friendship, Gen, Insecurity, Questioning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 05:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13334535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_lit/pseuds/brightly_lit
Summary: Tanuma has always assumed he knew Natsume's reasons for keeping his distance from everyone he knows, but when he overhears him talking to Matoba, he begins to question whether they were ever really friends at all.  This story is from Tanuma's POV.





	Doubt

If there's one thing Tanuma knows about his friend Natsume, it's that there's a lot he doesn't know about him--and Tanuma knows more about him than any other human, he's pretty sure. Only Tanuma and Taki, of all the people who live in his town, know he can see yokai.

Natsume is unfailingly polite to humans ... and also distant. Tanuma knows he keeps his distance for one reason: to try to protect the humans around him from the dangers inherent to his ability. Natsume seems to have created a perfect facade, the face of a normal boy doing his best to follow the rules set down for him. Only Tanuma and Taki can see through the cracks sometimes, how pale and shaken he is after an encounter with a yokai, how he gets frightened and distracted when able to see something the others around him can't. He tries to cover it up and act normal as quickly as possible--and his other two closest friends at school, Nishimura and Kitamoto, never seem to notice anything amiss--but Natsume is human, after all.

Tanuma can't help feeling a twinge of jealousy sometimes when overhearing Natsume talk to his yokai cat: irritable, exasperated, sometimes downright angry, it's also familiar, open, genuine. What he wouldn't give to finally get to hear Natsume talk to Tanuma so frankly and freely, but Natsume takes care with his words when speaking to his human friends. Actually, he seldom says much at all.

So it's with a surge of intense jealousy that Tanuma one day hears Natsume's voice in the forest not far from the temple where Tanuma lives, and catches a glimpse through the forest of the person to whom Natsume is speaking, someone very much human. There's no doubt; Tanuma can only see vague shadows when looking at yokai. 

This human is handsome, with long, black hair and a mask over one eye. Natsume is at least as open and exasperated with this guy as he is with Ponta, and Tanuma is quite sure Natsume has never even mentioned this guy's existence to Tanuma! Just how many close friends does Natsume have scattered all over this region?! There's that actor, too. Is he actually so distant with his school friends because he has to spend time with them at school, all the while knowing his real friends live elsewhere? It would explain a lot, such as why, when invited to hang out somewhere after school or during vacation, Natsume usually begs off. Tanuma finds a spot behind a thicket, through which he can see them somewhat, but through which he's pretty sure he can't be seen.

"... the power of the temple is ... useful for my purposes," the masked guy is saying.

The temple where Tanuma lives! That has to be what they're talking about. Tanuma leans forward, waiting for Natsume to mention Tanuma, how they're friends ... but he does nothing of the sort.

"This is my forest, where my friends live. I don't want you coming anywhere near it."

"Your ... friends?" The masked man almost laughs. "I'll never understand how you can be so naive as to consider yokai 'friends.'"

Again Tanuma waits for Natsume to correct him, to say he meant both his human and yokai friends--after all, Tanuma is the only human who lives anywhere near this part of the forest--but he doesn't. "They have feelings, too!" is all Natsume says.

"If you were taking charge of the yokai in this area ... I might consider it," the masked man says, "but you let them run wild; you do nothing."

Tanuma has never seen Natsume this passionate, about anything; he's so upset, he seems to be holding himself back from physically attacking this guy. Tanuma thinks back on how Natsume acts at school: distant, bored ... practically not even there, his mind far away. Tanuma slumps behind the thicket. His friendship with Natsume, which has always meant so much to Tanuma ... after all, did it never mean a thing to Natsume, just a way to pass the time while he has to be at school, just a consequence of his perfect, if empty, good-student act? Maybe it's not just that Natsume can see yokai; maybe it's that yokai are the only beings in the world he really cares about.

"There's nothing wrong in my forest!" Natsume says, voice rising. "Everything is in balance, no yokai are out of control, unlike the places you invade. You don't have anything to worry about, so get lost!" Natsume lunges toward him, only an inch, but it seems to be enough to make the masked man consider a long few moments, and finally relent.

"Very well. For now ... until we meet again, Natsume Takashi." The masked man bows, and retreats. 

Tanuma observes as Natsume tensely watches him go, then slumps with relief. Tanuma sits silent, hurt feelings roiling inside him. He'll wait until Natsume leaves, then go home and try to process this new information. Tanuma has never seen Natsume speak to another human that way: open, familiar, not holding back at all, just blurting out exactly what he's thinking. He's certainly never come anywhere close to that with Tanuma. It's all terribly depressing.

Tanuma waits for Natsume to turn and address his yokai friends--his real friends--who are probably lurking all around him in hiding, watching him protect them. Instead, after taking a long few moments to recover himself, Natsume takes a step toward the temple, then another, peering anxiously through the underbrush in its direction. "Sensei," Natsume whispers, and Ponta makes an appearance. "Did you see if Tanuma came home?"

"I was eating my squid in that bush over there!" Ponta tells him rudely, and just as Natsume is getting pissed, he adds, "but no one came past on the path."

Natsume peers through the bushes again. "Sensei," he says, his voice taking on an uncharacteristically commanding tone, "will you go make sure Matoba has really gone? You don't ... you don't think he'd bother Tanuma, do you? Try to involve him somehow?"

"Tanuma would be useless to him," Ponta declares, "as long as he doesn't know you're friends. You did keep that to yourself, didn't you?"

"Of course I did, Sensei!" Natsume says, exasperated--really, just still upset. "Now would you please go check??"

With a poof, Ponta disappears ... and a strong gust of wind ruffles Natsume's hair and clothing. Natsume doesn't even seem to notice.

His spirits rising, Tanuma creeps back through the undergrowth until he gets to the path, whereupon he heads home, toward the temple, like he's just coming from school. 

"Oi, Tanuma!" Natsume calls, that precious voice, too seldom calling his name. Tanuma turns with a grin, trying to pretend this is the first he knows of Natsume's presence here, trying to pretend he wasn't just hiding in a bush spying on him. 

Natsume bursts from the bushes, transparently trying to pretend it's perfectly normal to do so, anxiously brushing at his head to get leaves out of his hair. "I just ... I just, uh ...." Natsume suddenly gets embarrassed. "I didn't want to bother you, but I wanted to see if you were all r--I just ... I just wanted to see you."

Tanuma can't help the joy that comes over his face. "You never have to apologize for that," he assures him, as he's had to assure him so many times in the past, but all those years of being unwanted by family after family and in school after school aren't so easy to overcome. Tanuma shakes his head at himself. How had he forgotten that about Natsume? Natsume may be distant and unfailingly polite, but as hard as he tries to keep his feelings under wraps, his warmth, his caring, and his anxiety about imposing on his friends still always come through, clear as day.

Having witnessed the event that led to Natsume's current state of distraction and anxiety, Tanuma feels he understands Natsume's emotions perfectly in this moment, as though he's pouring them out freely in words. Natsume, after all, doesn't have much of a poker face, try as he might.

"So, have you ... seen anyone around lately?" Natsume asks as they head toward the temple, apparently thinking he's being subtle. "I mean, you know, strange yokai, or ... humans?"

"Just you," Tanuma says, and smirks.

Natsume chuckles, bashfully. "I know I'm strange; I just meant ... strangers?"

Tanuma considers confessing to having eavesdropped, but looking into Natsume's clear, anxious eyes right now, it couldn't be more obvious that for Tanuma even to know about that Matoba guy's existence would trouble Natsume greatly. Somehow, now, looking at him, Tanuma is sure Natsume spends many nights lying awake, worrying about his friends. "Nope," he says. 

"Oh, good," Natsume says. "Good. I'm just ... so glad you're all right," Natsume gushes. Tanuma realizes if he hadn't witnessed all the preceeding events, this would have come as a non sequitor. Tanuma starts feeling kind of ashamed as he realizes he would have interpreted this as Natsume saying he didn't think Tanuma could handle yokai problems, or revealing that, once again, he could have asked for Tanuma's help with a problem--a problem involving the temple--and didn't. 

Now, though ... now, suddenly, Natsume doesn't seem distant and circumspect at all; he seems frank and open and sincere. Tanuma realizes that in his way, Natsume is always frank and open and sincere. You just have to trust him, that though he keeps so many secrets, he's always doing his best, for all his friends, human and yokai.

"And I'm glad you're all right," Tanuma notes, just as Ponta makes his reappearance, hopping up on Natsume's shoulder almost as if he's a real cat. Natsume looks confused at this remark, and Tanuma grins to himself. For once, Natsume isn't the only one with a secret. Tanuma won't be telling him about hiding in bushes spying on him any time soon.

Natsume passes it off with a cheerful shrug, and Tanuma is suddenly able to see something else clearly about Natsume that he's never been sure about: that ultimately, he's just a normal teenaged boy trying to live a normal life, hanging out with a friend after school. He didn't beg off so often because he didn't want to hang out; he begged off because he was so busy with problems inherent to his abilities--too many problems for a boy so young, yet somehow he bears up under them. 

They start talking about school, an upcoming festival, all that normal stuff, and Tanuma fills with contentment, knowing if there's one thing he knows about Natsume, it's that he is really, truly, his friend.


End file.
